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Contents
- Abstract
- Previous Empirical Evidence for Gender Differences in Sex Drive
- Theoretical Conceptualization: What Is Sex Drive?
- Sex Drive Versus Sexual Desire
- Indicators of Sex Drive
- Theoretical Approaches
- Sexual Strategies Theory
- Sexual Double Standards Hypothesis
- Social Learning Theory
- Social Role Theory
- Gender Similarities Hypothesis
- Sexual Economics Theory
- Summary
- The Present Meta-Analysis
- Method
- Inclusion Criteria
- Literature Search
- Screening and Requests for Data
- Effect Size Computation
- Meta-Analysis of Item-Level Effect Sizes
- Coding
- Publication Characteristics
- Study Characteristics
- Sample Characteristics
- Outcome Characteristics
- Statistical Analyses
- Robust Variance Estimation
- Heterogeneity
- Meta-Analytic Correlation Analyses
- Publication Bias
- Statistical Software
- Transparency and Openness
- Results
- Search Results
- Study and Sample Characteristics
- Correlation Structure of Outcomes
- Outlier Analysis and Treatment
- Gender Differences in Sex Drive
- Gender Differences in Potentially Biased Responding
- Global Summary Effect, Adjustment for Response Bias, and Natural Language Interpretation
- Publication Bias
- Moderation Analyses
- Sex Drive Manifestations
- Cognition Frequency
- Affect Frequency
- Behavior Frequency
- Indicators of Latent Sex Drive
- Interim Summary
- Discussion
- Biased Responding
- Publication Bias
- Implications for Theory
- Some Evidence for Moderation
- Future Directions for Conceptualizing Sex Drive
- Limitations
- Response Bias
- Limitations of Moderator Analyses
- Rate of Responses to Data Requests
- Specificity of Sexual Cognitions
- Generalizability
- Conclusions
Figures and Tables
Abstract
Few spheres in life are as universally relevant for (almost) all individuals past puberty as sexuality. One important aspect of sexuality concerns individuals’ sex drive—their dispositional sexual motivation. A vigorous scientific (and popular) debate revolves around the question of whether or not there is a gender difference in sex drive. Several theories predict a higher sex drive in men compared to women, with some theories attributing this difference to biased responding rather than true differences. Currently, there is little consensus on how to conceptualize sex drive, nor does a quantitative summary of the literature exist. In this article, we present a theory-driven conceptualization of sex drive as the density distribution of state sex drive, where state sex drive is defined as momentary sexual motivation that manifests in sexual cognition, affect, and behavior. We conduct a comprehensive meta-analysis of gender differences in sex drive based on 211 studies, 856 effect sizes, and 621,463 persons. The meta-analysis revealed a...